I swear, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much sense he made.
“I’m sorry,” she says. And it’s so sincere that my heart aches for her. Literally fucking aches for her. I swear I can feel it swell and throb in my chest. “I’m really sorry, Ethan.” She reaches for me with her bound wrists, and she takes my hands in hers and she gives them a little squeeze. “I honestly never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did,” I say. And I can’t help the sad tone in my voice. Because it’s true, she did hurt me. And she should know that, if nothing else. You have to own your mistakes, your actions.
“I know.” She looks away with shame on her pretty face.
“Why, Carrie?” I ask, my voice sounding desperate.
She doesn’t answer, and I wait a long time to see if she will.
“Carrie?” I say her name. And I honestly, truly love the sound of her name as it comes from my mouth, my lips perfectly forming around the letters. The way the word runs out of my mouth, like it was made for only me to say.
“Because it was the only way,” she finally says, and takes a shuddering breath.
“The only way?” I repeat.
She still isn’t looking at me, so I reach across and I put my fingers on the bottom of her chin like I’ve seen Cary Grant do in several movies. And I tug her chin,‘lightly, Ethan, gently,’until she is looking at me again.
“It was the only way to make it stop, to give myself half a chance to survive.” She looks so pitiful. “I would have died if I had stayed.”
A tear slips free and glides down her cheek. I watch it until it drips off the end of her face and vanishes as it’s absorbed into the duvet. Like it never even existed. Just a small blot on the cotton, almost invisible to the naked eye. But you can feel it if you touch it. It leaves its mark in the way it feels.
“You should have asked for help,” I say.
She shakes her head. “He was so convincing, and when he wasn’t convincing he was frightening. You’d be surprised how many people look away from the ugly things they see.”
I nod like I understand. And I guess I do.
It’s like my mom and dad not visiting me anymore. It was ugly there and they didn’t want to see it anymore. It hurt, but I got over it, sort of.
I’m glad we’re at this place, that we’re finally opening up and being truthful to one another.
And maybe there is a chance for us, I think.Maybe we can still make this work after all.
Hope.
You can’t help but have it, even when you don’t want to.
Even when you know it will probably kill you in the end.
Hope.
It lives on when everything else dies.
I am silly for having hope. But it’s there all the same.
I have hope for Carrie. And for us.
There is still time,I think happily.There is still time for us.
